CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Reverberations from a life endure

In silence they may hide until their time

Then ride on fissures, causing hairline cracks

Fracturing certainty and peace of mind

In her own spell she faced the truth she’d fought

Her destiny and future now she sought

—THE BOOK OF UNVEILING

Kyara crept through the shadows in the alleys. After attacking Aren while rescuing Darvyn, she knew there was a hunt on for her. Each time a group of soldiers marched by, shining their lamps, searching for the fugitives, she attempted to melt into the darkness. She wasn’t sure if Ydaris could change the parameters of her spell and try to force Kyara out of hiding. She suspected the magic needed her to be within earshot of the commands; that’s how it had always been. But she did not know for sure and her life now depended on it.

She followed the Morladyn River from Low End to the warehouse district, a neighborhood full of dark streets and buildings that would be empty at this hour. Plenty of places to hide.

A barge passed on its way to Checkpoint One; the rumble of its engine made her chest vibrate. An odd feeling of awareness had been tugging at her since she’d left the safe house. Somewhere out there, something was calling her.

It reminded her of the whispering voices that had led her to the crystal city, but this compulsion was different. There were no voices this time, only a strong desire that drew her like a magnet until she could ignore it no longer. She crossed the street, staying out of the pools cast by the gaslights.

Warehouses lined the road, most filled with goods from Yaly, Lagrimar’s only trading partner. Unmanned chain boats came through Morladyn’s Pass from the neighboring country. Goods were unloaded here and packaged before being sent to the rest of Lagrimar.

The only vehicle on the street was a covered rickshaw in front of one such nondescript warehouse on the corner. A rickshaw was an odd luxury in this part of the city. The driver stood at attention, ever at the ready.

Kyara hid herself in the shadows of a building across the street. What had pulled her toward this particular property? She had only been waiting a few minutes when the door opened and a shrouded figure wearing a funeral veil emerged and climbed into the carriage. Not a sliver of the person’s skin was visible, but Kyara knew that purposeful walk anywhere. Ydaris.

What business did the Cantor have here?

In seconds, the driver perked up and took off. But a man remained in the warehouse doorway. Kyara caught a glimpse of mud-brown trousers and a gray tunic—workmen’s clothes—but gasped when she caught sight of his face before he shut the door.

Raal.

Kyara’s blood ran cold. She backed against the bricks on shaking legs, relying on the wall to support her. What was he doing here?

She waited, watching the warehouse and the rest of the street for soldiers, worry gnawing at her insides. Evening passed to night, but she could not bring herself to move. Ydaris being here with Raal could not be a coincidence.

She freed her Song, sinking into her other vision only to be blinded by the sheer quantity of Nethersong filling the warehouse. Short of Serpent’s Gorge, she had never seen such a concentrated cache of the energy. She reached for it, seeking the invigoration it supplied, but something blocked her. A shield or ward of some kind kept the Nethersong in place and out of her reach. Her curiosity was piqued. She needed to get inside.

Just then, the physician emerged. Gone was his signature hat; his bald pate gleamed in the lamplight, and a dark cloak covered his clothes. He took off down the street and disappeared into an alley. Kyara had just moved to follow him when he appeared again, this time on horseback, and galloped away toward the main avenue.

Due to the overwhelming Nethersong, she could not tell if anyone else was in the warehouse. She had not yet seen the two servants Raal had had in the vision she’d seen of him at the crystal city. The men could very well be inside.

Going in blind was a risk, but she needed to investigate. She must have been led here for a reason, and the same feeling that had drawn her here continued to pull her toward the warehouse.

After checking her surroundings to make sure no one was showing her undue attention—if an alert had gone out, a layperson could give her up just as easily as a soldier—Kyara crossed the street and pushed against the front door. It was unlocked. Her caution doubled. She remembered something the ulla used to say. People who didn’t lock their doors had either nothing to hide or should be hidden from, and Raal was definitely hiding something.

Thick, stale air clogged her lungs. The dim interior was heavy and oppressive. When her eyes adjusted to the meager light, she found herself in an old storeroom. Tables stacked with junk lay covered in dust, and shipping crates, jars, and pallets cluttered the floor.

Nethersong swirled around her, intense and forceful. How could this place hold so much death?

A single wooden door stood on the opposite wall. Unlike the front entry, this one was locked. Urgency bit at her heels. She had no skill at lock picking so it took only a split second to decide to kick in the door. If she had to fight someone on the other side, so be it.

Her first kick merely caused the door to creak. She readied herself for another try when she felt the tug of Nethersong in the dead wood of the door.

This was new. She cocked her head to the side, focusing. With only a nudge from her Song, the dead wood splintered into shards. She jumped back in surprise. The Nethersong here was concentrated and potent. The same heady intoxication from Serpent’s Gorge filled her.

Beyond the ruined door, a huge room spread out before her. High windows from the second story let in filtered light. A metal lattice catwalk edged the interior, just below the windows. Kyara’s breath caught as her gaze tracked down.

Laid out in orderly rows on the floor were white cloths—hundreds of them—taking up the entire vast space. Each cloth covered a lumpy but recognizable form. Kyara knelt next to the nearest sheet and lifted it, her heart in her throat.

The sightless eyes of a corpse stared back at her, the whites darkened to black. She checked the gums, as well, though she knew what she would find.

She jerked the sheet off to view the dead man’s body. Grisly wounds marked the neck, wrists, and thighs over the thickest arteries. Other corpses featured the same. Ydaris’s handiwork. She must be working on a spell of unprecedented magnitude to need this much blood.

Kyara sank back into her mind’s eye. Brilliant flashes of Nether whirled and eddied. But something else hung in the spaces between the dancing lights. It was different from the darkness of Earthsong. Smokelike and empty, she could only describe it as visual static. Then a word came to her: Void.

Trying to focus her sight on the Void was like trying to capture the wind in a bottle. Its movements were at once random and graceful, but ever elusive even to her inner vision.

Kyara grabbed hold of the Nethersong of the nearest body and pulled it to her the way she had with the Death River poison that had filled Darvyn. As it swirled into her Song, hazy waves of the Void settled onto the corpse, taking the place of the Nether. She had never observed this before, though it began to make sense. The dead held no Earthsong, but when their Nethersong was siphoned, the Void replaced it.

But the Void was inconstant. No sooner had it moved into the body than a glimmer of Nethersong flickered to life, growing quickly to displace the vacuous emptiness.

She was reminded of the balance she’d felt at Serpent’s Gorge. Earthsong and Nethersong waxing and waning in a steady equilibrium. She hadn’t seen the Void then, but she hadn’t known what to look for. The Void could be easy to miss, like a shadow cast by a single candle in a dark room.

“What is this place?” she whispered to herself.

“Think of it like a giant battery.”

She whipped around and stumbled as she came face-to-face with Raal. She took a step back, ready to lash out at him. He held his hands out, trying to appear harmless.

“Kyara, I can help you.”

“If you move, I’ll stop your heart.” Kyara’s voice was deadly calm even as fear consumed her. She grabbed hold of the Nether in Raal’s body. He was far older than he looked but healthy.

He smiled, ignoring her threat. “I know. Isn’t it amazing?”

She paused. The possibility that he might be insane hadn’t crossed her mind before.

“Your power is magnificent, Kyara. And yet you want to get rid of it.”

“How do you know that?”

He raised his eyebrows slightly.

“I can help you,” he repeated. His words sent a chill of intrigue through her. At the same time, common sense countered that he would say anything to spare his life.

“You took someone from me. You’ve killed so many people.” She swept her arm to indicate the warehouse.

“I didn’t kill these people. This is Ydaris’s work.”

“Why so many?” she murmured.

“The True Father has given her quite a task. She must create a spell strong enough to tear down the Mantle. Something like that requires a fair amount of blood.”

Kyara felt sick to her stomach. All those people. No wonder the nabbers had been grabbing children like never before to replace the workforce. Entire neighborhoods or villages must have given their lives for this spell.

“And what’s your excuse?” she asked.

“You say I took someone from you?”

“You don’t remember meeting me before?” She cocked her head to the side.

His brow furrowed, and Kyara let out a deranged laugh. “It’s just as well. I suppose a madman crossing the country spreading the plague wouldn’t remember every little girl he came across.”

Hands still raised, he took a step forward. She tightened the grip on his Nethersong, sending a jolt of nausea through him that made him stop short. Sweat beaded across his forehead.

“I said don’t move.”

“All right, all right. Then just listen. I am sorry if my experiments took someone you love. But I can help you achieve your goal.”

“Your experiments? What exactly are you, and what do you want?”

“In Yaly, we are known as Physicks, and our magic is called amalgam. It takes the life magic of Earthsong, the death magic of Nethersong, the spirit magic of the blood, and combines it with material objects to create amalgamations.” His eyes shone with excitement. “If you’ll allow me to show you?”

Kyara’s mind raced, but she could not discard her curiosity. She nodded. “As long as no one is harmed,” she cautioned. Raal reached into the pocket of his tunic and produced a pair of spectacles. He held them out to her.

She inched closer until she could grasp them from his hand. “What are these?”

“Put them on.”

She glared at him.

“I vow to you I am not here to harm you or anyone else.”

“Your vow means nothing, murderer.”

“If murdering you was my objective, it would have already been done.” His tone was pleasant, but a layer of ice covered his green eyes.

She didn’t unfold the prongs of the spectacles, unwilling to fully put them on. Instead she held them up to one eye, so she could still watch Raal with the other. Through the glass, the warehouse changed. Nethersong shone, similar to how it did in her mind’s eye, but instead of bright columns of light, it was rendered as red clouds. The walls of the warehouse were outlined in a blue glow—the shield she’d sensed from outside. Beyond the building, tiny pulses of green dotted the surrounding area.

“What is the green?”

“Those are Earthsingers. Children, most likely, who haven’t yet given tribute.”

Kyara turned the lens to Raal himself. He had no color, but blotches of yellow could be seen on his person.

“And the yellow?” she asked.

“Other amalgamations. A pocket watch that reminds you of your appointments and warns you if you’re late. A pen that translates your writing into other languages. A compass for traveling. A coin that shifts to any currency.”

“If these objects are made with blood magic, why are they not covered in the red stone the way calderas are?”

“That is the benefit of amalgam. Blood spells mesh the three magics but in a primitive way. The creation of a caldera does not imbue the actual object with any power, it merely serves as a container to hold magic. With amalgam, we create spelled objects that are far more powerful.”

Kyara had to admit she had never seen anything like these spectacles, and the other objects he mentioned sounded fantastical.

“What do the Physicks want?” she asked, lowering the glasses.

“For a thousand years, we have sought one thing and one thing only: immortality.”

Kyara took an instinctive step back. “You will live forever in the World After.”

“Are you certain? We have only old stories and misguided faith to tell us this. The Living World, however, is proven. Think of all you could do with eternity to play with right here.”

“It hasn’t done the True Father any good.”

Raal sneered. “His long life is due only to stolen magic. The thieving corrupts it. What we seek is something else, something more.” His face transformed into a glorious smile. “And I believe that you can help us.”

She took another step back. “Me? How?”

“Your Song … It is so rare. To find an adult Nethersinger is unheard of. If you truly want to remove your Song, we can help. In Yaly, the Physicks can safely divest you of it. You would be free of your servitude to the immortal king. Is that not what you seek?”

She was certain she could not trust this man. His hands were even bloodier than her own. “The True Father would never let me go.”

Raal shrugged. “He would not have to know.”

“And what would you do with my Song, once you had it?”

His smile thinned. “We would keep it, of course. But you would not be harmed at all.”

So Raal wanted a death stone … Wasn’t that merely the Song of a Nethersinger trapped in a caldera? And with the ancient death stone lost, of course the Physicks would seek to use her to create a new one.

But he was lying when he’d said she wouldn’t be harmed if she went with him to Yaly and allowed him to experiment on her. Murmur had said she would have to die in order for any caldera made of her Song to be useful.

And what then? Would that begin the war that Murmur had spoken of?

She shook her head and tossed the spectacles back to him.

“Think over my offer,” Raal said. “When we next meet, you may be more inclined to accept.”

He smiled again and stepped to the side, clearing her way to leave.

Her skin crawled as she eased past him and picked up speed to get as far away as possible.